The Animus Hub Finally Lets Assassin’s Creed Fans Pick an Era, Not a Lecture

In 2026, asking where to start Assassin’s Creed is like asking a room of historians to agree on a single breakfast cereal. There are 14 mainline games, and the answer depends entirely on who is doing the shouting. Purists point to the very beginning or the Ezio trilogy; action fans wave Black Flag like a pirate flag; newcomers suggest Origins for its RPG manners. No era feels the same, so there is no right answer—only a pile of confusingly different ones. 🙃

Thankfully, after nearly 20 years, Assassin’s Creed Shadows has a pretty good solution: the Animus Hub. It is basically the Call of Duty launcher, but for Assassin’s Creed—a centralised menu where players can hop between games without rummaging through a library. That alone makes era-jumping easier, but the Hub is also a clever extension of the fiction. It makes players feel as though they really are sifting through different memories in an Abstergo VR suite, minus the corporate paperwork and the unsettling dental chair.

The Timeline Does the Arguing for You

The Hub works because it lists each game on a vertical timeline, with a date and a descriptor that cuts straight to the jugular of what people care about: the historical setting. Assassin’s Creed has always functioned like an anthology with a continuous modern-day thread, but that thread has been flailing since Desmond Miles died in 2012. Layla Hassan led the charge across three games, yet the conspiracy never quite clicked, and franchise boss Marc-Alexis Coté has admitted as much. The modern-day plot has become a soap opera wearing a VR headset.

The Hub understands that failure. Splitting games by historical era immediately tells newcomers that order does not matter, because the crux of the story takes place in the past. Players can ignore the modern-day guff altogether, like terms and conditions, and pick a period that sounds fascinating—the Peloponnesian War, the Viking invasion of England, or whatever century has the best hats. It is like a museum docent who hands over a map instead of a dissertation on velvet ropes: helpful, legible, and mercifully short.

A Luggage Carousel for Centuries

Granted, the Hub is not perfect. Right now, only the RPG games are included: Origins, Odyssey, Valhalla, Mirage, and Shadows. That means the majority of the series is not represented, and Mirage sits in an awkward middle ground—bigger than Chronicles and Liberation, smaller than a true mainline entry, and roughly the size of a very ambitious expansion pack. The selection is disjointed, but Ubisoft stresses that the Hub will continue to evolve with new features and additional content in the coming months and years. There is also a rumoured Black Flag remake supposedly underway, so old games may eventually sail into the menu. Even incomplete, the Hub is the most intuitive way to break into a series with this much baggage. It is a luggage carousel for centuries: grab the bag labelled Ptolemaic Egypt and go.

The Best Starting Point Is No Starting Point

For years, the worst part of recommending Assassin’s Creed was the recommendation itself. Ten fans would produce ten answers, each delivered with the confidence of a weather forecaster during a hurricane. The Animus Hub sidesteps the argument entirely. Newcomers do not need a starting point; they need a mood. Want pirates? There is a period for that. Want sand, pyramids, and a surprisingly emotional camel? There is a period for that too. Want to be a Viking who solves problems with an axe and then complains about it? Step right up.

That is the real win. The Hub turns a 14-game backlog into a menu of historical holidays. It is not a perfect menu, and it will need more games, more clarity, and fewer missing eras, but it is finally a sensible answer to a question the fandom has been overcomplicating for nearly two decades. In 2026, the best place to start Assassin’s Creed is wherever the player actually wants to go. Pick a century, grab a hidden blade, and let the timeline do the nagging. 🗡️